“MOC [Ministry of Commerce] is glad to share that Pakistan’s exports to Afghanistan during Jul-Apr 2021 have grown by 15% to USD 869 million as compared to USD 754 million during Jul-Apr 2020, tweeted Dawood.
The exports of Fruits, Vegetables, Meat, Dairy products, Chemicals, Electrical equipment, Machinery, Paper & Paperboard have contributed to this increase. We continue to encourage legal, secure, transparent, consistent & reliable trade with Afghanistan. Exporters are urged to aggressively market their exports to Afghanistan. We also commend the efforts of MOC’s Trade & Investment Counsellor & urge him to provide even greater facilitation to our exporters”, he revealed through his official twitter account.
Dawood revealed this information the same day when Pakistan’s army chief, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, went to Kabul to hold talks with top officials including Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
During an interview with the Bloomberg, Dawood disclosed that Pakistan was keen on trading more with Afghanistan and Central Asia countries including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Read More: Exports surpass $2bn mark for seventh consecutive month
“We’re too restricted to a few countries — North America, European Union and China,” said Dawood. “But there is a much bigger world.”
PM Khan has always acknowledged the critical role of exports in the national economy and is therefore, committed to extend all possible facilitation to the exporters and remove any hurdles that might come in the way of enhancing the country’s exports. Under the ‘Make in Pakistan’ policy that was introduced by the government to promote export-oriented industrialization in the country, Duty Drawback rates for around eight sectors were revised upwards by the FBR.
More than 434,000 claims were disposed of and approximately 7800 exporters have benefited from this initiative. A system of refunds was also streamlined by the current government to resolve liquidity issues of the exporters and industrialists.
Earlier, the commerce advisor had announced that country had witnessed $52 million worth of more exports to Australia during July-April FY2021 as compared to the same period last year.
“We are glad to share that during Jul-April 2021, our exports to Australia increased by 29% to USD 229 million as compared to USD 177 million in Jul-April 2020. This is the highest 10-months export to Australia ever,” he had tweeted.